Setting out for the border, Jefferson’s party first reached Nice, where they learned that the roads through the Alps were still covered with snow, making a carriage journey impossible. So Jefferson left the vehicle at a stable and hired mules, muleteers, and a guide to lead him and Adrien Petit through the Tende Pass and down into the Po Valley. They set out on April 13, 1787, Jefferson’s forty-fourth birthday.
He had chronicled the appearance of crops as he entered Provence; now he reported their absence as he climbed into the Alps. “There are no Orange trees after we leave the environs of Nice. We lose the Olive after rising a little above the village of Scarena on Mount Braus, and find it again on the other side a little before we get down to Sospello. But wherever there is soil enough, it is terrassed and in corn. The waste parts are either in two leaved pine and thyme, or of absolutely naked rock.”31
The road through the Alps took them to a height of 6,145 feet—the highest point Jefferson had ever been in his life. The sure-footed mules navigated the deep snow easily, and, as in France, post houses appeared every ten or twelve miles, allowing the travelers to rest, warm themselves, and have a meal. When not studying the scenery, Jefferson amused himself by rereading the account of Hannibal’s passage through the Alps during his invasion of Italy in 218 B.C. He tried to identify which route Hannibal followed, with his army of seventy thousand men and thirty-seven elephants, but, he lamented, “the descriptions given of his march are not sufficiently particular to enable us at this day even to guess at his tract across the Alps.” After passing through gorges and admiring “a mountain cloven through,” Jefferson and his party reached the commune of Limone Piemonte, from which he enjoyed a magnificent view of the Po Valley. Once the group had descended into Italy, Jefferson exchanged his mules and muleteers for a carriage and coachman.32
Now began one of the most extraordinary incidents in the life of Thomas Jefferson. While in Lombardy, he visited rice farms and was shown the machine that removed the husks from the grains. It seemed no different from the type of rice-cleaning machines used in America; nonetheless, Jefferson purchased one, intending to send it back to Virginia. What he then discovered was that the rice grown in Lombardy was of better quality than the rough rice grown in America. He wanted to acquire samples to send back to the planters in South Carolina but was told it was impossible—the law forbade the export of seeds from the Lombard rice plants, and the penalty for attempting to transport the grain out of the country was death.
Undeterred, Jefferson took the risk. In a letter to Edward Rutledge of South Carolina he confessed: “I could only bring off as much as my coat and surtout pockets would hold.” He knew this amount wasn’t enough, so he bribed a muleteer to smuggle sacks of the rice out of Italy. Jefferson’s brief career as a rice smuggler never troubled his conscience. Years later, in a memorandum he wrote to himself entitled “Services to My Country,” he stated: “The greatest service which can be rendered to any country is, to add an useful plant to its culture.”33 Returning to Paris, Jefferson followed a different route, through western France. He wanted to see that engineering marvel, the two-hundred-mile-long Canal de Languedoc, which linked the Mediterranean with the Atlantic. (The canal still exists today, although it is known now as the Canal du Midi.) He booked passage on a barge, a voyage that took nine days. He had the wheels removed from his carriage and used it as his stateroom, in which he read, wrote in his notebook, caught up on correspondence, and simply observed the passing scenery. After disembarking, Jefferson had the carriage wheels restored and then rode on to Bordeaux. It was May, and fresh produce was abundant; at his hotel he enjoyed cherries, strawberries, and spring peas. At Amboise, on June 8, the carriage’s wheels required repairs yet again, but for the last time. On June 10, 1787, Jefferson was home at the Hôtel de Langeac, after a trip that had lasted three and a half months.
In every way it had been a remarkable and memorable, not to mention productive, journey. By seeing at long last ancient Roman monuments, Jefferson renewed his admiration for the clean classical lines of Greco-Roman architecture. By sampling some of the best vintages of France, he had confirmed his passion for fine wine. And by bringing back a few sacks of bootleg Italian rice, he hoped to boost America’s rice trade. He had seen many fruits, grains, nuts, and vegetables that he thought would flourish in the United States, but he was most enthusiastic about the olive. Back at his desk in the Hôtel de Langeac, Jefferson wrote to the South Carolina Society for Promoting Agriculture what Lucia C. Stanton, Monticello’s historian, has described as “a three-page paean to the olive, filled with uncharacteristic exclamation points.” Gushing with fervor, Jefferson extolled the olive as “the richest gift of heaven … one of the most precious productions in nature.” Among other benefits, it would get people to eat their vegetables, because the tasty oil was “a proper and codortable nourishment” for greens. Given so many benefits, he believed that the importation and cultivation of olive trees “should be the object of the Carolina patriot.”
The gentlemen of the South Carolina Society for Promoting Agriculture were won over, and the first olive tree seedlings arrived in the state in 1791. Unfortunately, they did not flourish in South Carolina’s sultry climate, which resembled not in the least the climate of either Provence or Italy. By 1804 the South Carolina olive tree experiment was abandoned.34
The Italian rice project also went bust. South Carolina rice planters were reluctant to tear up and destroy their existing stock for an unknown product. Furthermore, they feared that if they planted the foreign-bred rice in addition to American rice, cross-pollination might create an entirely unpalatable and unmarketable hybrid. The American rice problem was resolved only in 1810, with the development of a new, locally produced variety, Northern Carolina Gold. This crop proved so good that Italy lost its near monopoly of the international rice market, a market that American planters dominated until the outbreak of the American Civil War, in 1861.
In other respects, however, the journey through France and into Italy was a success, and not just for Jefferson. What he saw, what he experienced, what he studied, and certainly what he ate and drank helped him sort out what was best and most useful in Europe. It became his intention to take such goods—whether a mechanical rice-kernel cleaner or olive tree seedlings—back home to America, where he hoped they would flourish. Not all of them would, of course. Nonetheless, when he returned to Virginia, Jefferson would not be just a retired ambassador; he planned to be the apostle of European civilization to his beloved country.
Chapter 5
BROTHER AND SISTER,
REUNITED
Now that he was back in Paris, Jefferson prepared for the arrival of his daughter Mary (called “Polly” by the family), whom he had been trying to bring over to France since 1785. Upon leaving Virginia in August 1784, he had placed the then six-year-old Polly and her two-year-old sister Lucy in the care of his sister-in-law Elizabeth Eppes and her husband, Francis, at Eppington, their plantation in Chesterfield County, Virginia. In the interim, many things had changed. In a letter dated September 16, 1784, Eppes wrote with news that Polly, Lucy, and two of the couple’s own children were ill. “I wish it was in my power to inform you that your children were well. They as well as our own are laid up with the hooping cough. Your little Lucy our youngest and Bolling are I think very ill. Polly has it badly but she sleeps well and eats hartily, tho she is not fallen off in the least. Doctr. Currie is here attending on your children and ours.”1 In January of the next year, the Marquis de Lafayette returned to France from America with a pair of melancholy letters for Jefferson, one from Francis Eppes, the other from the Eppeses’ family physician, Dr. James Currie.
The doctor’s letter gave Jefferson more details about the case: “I am sincerely sorry my dear friend now to accquaint you of the demise of poor Miss L. [Lucy] Jefferson, who fell a Martyr to the Complicated evils of teething, Worms and Hooping Cough which last was carried there by the Virus of their friends without their knowing it
was in their train. I was calld too late to do any thing but procrastinate the settled fate of the poor Innocent.… Mr. Eppes lost his own youngest Child from the same Cause and with difficulty Bollings life was saved. Miss P. [Polly] Jefferson got early over it and is now in good health.”2 Elizabeth Eppes had written, too, to offer some consolation to her brother-in-law’s grief: “Its impossible to paint the anguish of my heart on this melancholy occasion. A most unfortunate Hooping cough has deprived you, and us of two sweet Lucys, within a week. Ours was the first that fell a sacrifice. She was thrown into violent convulsions linger’d out a week and then expired. Your dear angel was confined a week to her bed, her sufferings were great though nothing like a fit. She retain’d her senses perfectly, calld me a few moments before she died, and asked distinctly for water.”3 This letter fell victim to the uncertainties of the eighteenth-century trans-Atlantic postal delivery system and did not reach Jefferson until May 1785.
Lucy Jefferson and her first cousin Lucy Eppes were buried in the family cemetery at Eppington. Their graves have never been located, although some believe that Jefferson had his child’s remains exhumed and reburied in the family cemetery at Monticello. If such a grave exists, it also has never been found. Nabby Adams recorded the unhappy news in her journal: “Mr. J[efferson] is a man of great sensibility and parental affection. His wife died when this child was born, and he was almost in a confined state of melancholy; confined himself from the world and even from his friends, for a long time; and this news has greatly affected him and his daughter [Polly].”4
Bereft once again and fearful he would lose Polly to the next epidemic of childhood illness that swept through Virginia, Jefferson decided that she must join him in France. Understandably, the young girl did not want to leave her relatives and the home she had come to know. Jefferson tried to convince her by promising “as many dolls and playthings as you want for yourself, or to send to your cousins.” But Polly wasn’t buying it. “I am very sorry you have sent for me,” she wrote to her father. “I don’t want to go to France. I had rather stay with Aunt Eppes.” To yet another letter from Jefferson urging her to come to Paris, Polly replied, “I cannot go to France and hope that you and sister Patsy are well.” Faced with her father’s persistence, Polly gave him an ultimatum: “I want to see you and sister Patsy but you must come to Uncle Eppes’ house.”5
Jefferson was not about to sail back and forth across the Atlantic to satisfy the demands of a child, even if she was a beloved daughter. Instead, he schemed with his in-laws to get her aboard a ship. They booked her passage, making Polly believe she would be sailing with her cousins. In fact, for several days before the ship sailed, the Eppes children stayed aboard the vessel with Polly, playing with her every day. On the day the ship was to sail, Polly was permitted to play until nightfall. Half-asleep, she returned to her cabin, and when she awoke she found herself at sea, her cousins gone and her only escort a Jefferson family slave, fourteen-year-old Sarah Hemings, known as Sally.
Sally Hemings was not the companion Jefferson had in mind to accompany his daughter. He had instructed the Eppeses to find “a careful negro woman” who had already survived a bout of smallpox and therefore would have been immune to the disease. He suggested Isabel Hern, an enslaved domestic servant at Monticello and the wife of David Hern, one of Jefferson’s best artisan-slaves. But in May 1787 Isabel had given birth to a girl and fallen ill after the delivery. She was unable to leave her bed, let alone sail to Europe. The Eppeses then selected Sally as Polly’s custodian.6
Whatever grief Polly experienced aboard ship soon dissipated, thanks to the attentions of Captain Andrew Ramsey and his crew. They became her new playmates, so much so that when the ship docked in England, Polly refused to disembark. But her friend the captain persuaded her that it was time to go, and he took Polly and Sally to London, where John and Abigail Adams were waiting to care for the child until the arrival of her father.7 Ramsey and his charges arrived at the Adamses’ house at Grosvenor Square on June 26, 1787. Polly, an affectionate child of strong attachments, did not want Ramsey to leave, although soon she felt at ease with the Adamses. Two weeks after her arrival, Abigail Adams wrote to Jefferson: “[Polly] is a child of the quickest sensibility, and the maturest understanding, that I have ever met with for her years.… She is the favorite of every creature in the House.”8 Even John Adams was taken with the girl. Writing to Jefferson, he assured him, “In my Life I never saw a more charming child.”9
With Sally Hemings, the Adamses were less pleased. It was not her appearance that troubled John and Abigail. Isaac Jefferson, a slave at Monticello, would later recall that on the plantation she was known as “Dashing Sally” because of her good looks. He also reported that, in complexion, Sally was “mighty near white,” and he described her as “very handsome, [with] long straight hair down her back.”10 But, like Jefferson, the Adamses had expected Polly to arrive with a mature nurse; when she did not, Abigail wrote to her friend in Paris. Sally Hemings, she believed, was “a Girl about 15 or 16 … the Sister of the servant you have with you.” In fact, Sally was only fourteen years old, which probably would have only increased Abigail’s anxiety had she known; as it was, she described Sally to Jefferson as “quite a child.” To convince her friend that she was not the only one who considered Sally entirely unsuitable to care for a child not yet nine years old, she added: “Captain Ramsey is of the opinion [Sally] will be of so little Service that he had better carry her back with him. But of this you will be the judge. She appears fond of the child and appears good natured.”11
Apparently, neither Abigail Adams nor Captain Ramsey was aware that, at Eppington, Sally had been assigned to look after Polly. It was customary in the American South to put enslaved children to work once they reached their tenth birthday. As a member of the privileged Hemings family, Sally would never do fieldwork; she would be employed inside the plantation house. It was a sign of Jefferson’s esteem for the Hemingses that young Sally became Polly’s caretaker and companion.12
In the meantime, Polly and the Adamses expected Jefferson to arrive any day to collect the two girls. Instead, they received a letter from him claiming that paperwork that had piled up during his tour of France and northern Italy compelled him to remain in Paris. He was sending his butler, Adrien Petit, to bring Polly and Sally to him.13 Petit’s arrival in London on July 5, 1787, disappointed the Adamses and threw Polly into a sobbing fit. The next day Abigail wrote to Jefferson that Polly had said “it would be as hard to leave me as it was her Aunt Eppes.” Indeed, on July 7, as Petit was preparing to leave with the two girls, Abigail and Polly clung to each other, weeping.14 Meanwhile, in Paris, Jefferson arranged for Polly to be admitted to the convent school of the Abbaye de Panthemont, where her sister was already enrolled. When the day of the family reunion finally arrived, it was a happy one for Jefferson and Patsy, both of whom were almost strangers to Polly; the youngest Jefferson still missed her Aunt Eppes, Abigail Adams, and Captain Ramsey and his crew.
We do not know how Sally occupied her time at the Hôtel de Langeac, but it seems likely she was trained to be a lady’s maid. We do know that she enjoyed special status while in Paris: whenever Patsy and Polly were on holiday from school, Sally was their companion and was perceived as such by friends and acquaintances. One of Patsy’s classmates, Marie de Botidoux, visited the Jefferson home several times and became friendly with Sally. After the Jeffersons returned to Virginia, Marie wrote to Patsy and asked her to say hello to “Mlle Sale” [Mademoiselle Sally]. Marie would not have sent greetings to a household servant, nor addressed one as mademoiselle, and so she must have been under the impression that Sally had special standing in the Jefferson household.15 Clearly, the implications of owning slaves were in the young girls’ minds; in a letter written to her father before Polly and Sally arrived in France, Patsy had exclaimed: “I wish with all my soul that the poor negroes were freed.”16
Of course, the citizens of Paris would have regarded Sally as a free
girl, just as they regarded her brother as a free man, which both were, under French law. But unlike James, Sally had no arrangement with Jefferson that promised her freedom if she performed a particular task in France. If she had decided to run off to the admiralty court and claim her freedom, Jefferson could have done nothing to stop her. She did not claim her freedom, however, and we do not know why, although perhaps her young age and lack of competency in the language played a role.
Although Jefferson had asked the Eppeses to send along with Polly a mature slave woman who had survived a bout of smallpox or been inoculated against it, in Sally, neither request was fulfilled, so he called in a physician to inoculate her. Smallpox was one of the most dreaded diseases of the eighteenth century. A particular outbreak had ravaged the American colonies for seven years—from 1775 to 1782—taking the lives of 130,000 out of a population of about 2.5 million.17 To give the numbers a modern perspective: if such an epidemic struck the United States today, a comparable death toll would be more than 15 million. The disease had no known cure, nor was it understood why some victims suffered a light case and survived, whereas others fell seriously ill and died. Even surviving smallpox could be a mixed blessing: the disease often left the survivor’s face disfigured by pock-marked scars. In some instances, it could render the person blind.
Fortunately, an effective inoculation against the disease had existed since the early part of the eighteenth century. An English physician named Edward Jenner had observed that dairy workers who contracted cowpox—a much milder disease—were then immune to smallpox. Jenner drew some fluid from a cowpox pustule and injected it subcutaneously into a healthy individual. The human guinea pig promptly came down with a case of cowpox and ever after was immune to smallpox.
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